the double whiskey, swallowing it in a single gulp. Then he looked over at Yashar. “Finish your drink; we’ve got a trap to walk into.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE RUSTLING OF THE VEIL OR SOMETHING LIKE IT
The locals called it Crackville—an uninspired but accurate moniker for a two-block-by-two-block-radius gutter of slumlord-owned apartment complexes, sporting no less than three competing crack houses operating at any given time. It had everything a growing slum needed to blossom into a full-blown ghetto: day-labor storefronts, liquor and convenience stores, bad lighting, and a dozen places to run if the police ever bothered to do anything but drive by slowly. The only thing keeping this mess from spilling over into the rest of the city was being nestled smack in the middle of sub-suburban tract homes, guarded by well-armed soccer moms, aided by lenient laws on gun ownership. While this didn’t stop the steady flow of traffic from coming in on Friday and Saturday nights to score, it did keep the transient population from lighting up their makeshift pipes too close to where the kids played. Instead, they lit up behind the overflowing brown Dumpsters sprinkled liberally throughout the area.
Ewan’s apartment was on the third floor of the central-most apartment complex in the very heart of Crackville. From his front door, he could see the porches of two operating drug dens—sometimes three, as they were prone to moving around in a shell game triggered by violence or the rare narcotics bust. One had to use caution when walking through the parking lots, not only to avoid degenerates doing the junkie shuffle mumbling for a handout, but also to keep from stepping on needles or shattered glass pipes.
The apartments were cabana style, facing a pool that was a molding, slimy, still-water pond, covered in algae and a thick brown layer of leaves still lingering from the previous autumn. It gave off the sickly smell of rot residents never noticed until mentioned aloud. Swarming with mosquitos as it was, Colby liked to think of it as the birthplace of disease. There was something almost supernatural about how foul Crackville was, as if some coven of infernally aligned creatures crept through its darkest crevasses, responsible for it all. But he knew better. Only humans could invent squalor and filth like this.
Yashar stood beside the door, on the other side of the veil—out of sight from mortal eyes—vigilant for anything that might catch them off guard. Something wasn’t right about Coyote’s visit. There was a lingering worry in the back of his mind. Was he missing something? By simply strolling up to Ewan’s were they somehow doing exactly what they shouldn’t? While normally more cautious about such things, the bottle of whiskey he and Colby had polished off helped assuage any fears he might have.
Colby rapped on the door, half drunk, but steady enough to hold a conversation. He waited a moment before raising his fist to rap again. KA-CHUNK. He was interrupted by the dead bolt on the other side of the door. It opened and Ewan peered out, looking both ways as he did so.
“Colby?” he asked. “What the hell are you doing here this late?”
Colby didn’t have an immediate answer.
“Is that Johnny Walker I smell?”
Colby shook his head. “No, it’s far older and much harder to pronounce, especially after half a bottle.”
“Get the hell in here.” Ewan held the door open wide enough for Colby to step through, furrowed his brow, and then closed it behind him, dead-bolting it again.
“Sorry, man,” said Colby. “I’ve been drinking.”
“I can see that.”
“You mind if I crash here tonight? I shouldn’t be out in this condition.” He was lying; he would have no problem getting home. But this seemed about as good an excuse as any.
“Of course,” said Ewan with a wry smile. “You’ve done it for me.”
Colby thought about that for a second. “That I have, actually.”
“Let me get you a pillow and a blanket from the other room.” Ewan walked into his bedroom and rooted around in his closet. Colby took a moment to soak in his surroundings. He breathed deeply through his nose, smelling nothing but stale laundry and unwashed dishes. There were no unusual shadows, nor were there any out-of-place holes. If any supernatural creatures spied on Ewan, they were doing so outside his apartment.
Ewan’s place was the consummate starving artist’s retreat. While no gifted painter, he was talented enough an illustrator and had lined the walls with thick sketch paper, scrawled with a series of troubling drawings. Colby